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I think talking about deaths is too binary when we are looking at air pollution, since I would imagine most of the deaths are from peope who have other conditio

I think talking about deaths is too binary when we are looking at air pollution, since I would imagine most of the deaths are from peope who have other conditions that air pollution is making worse, as opposed to things like car crashes where even very healthy people are killed. Looking at how much air pollution reduces life expectancy is a better measure, and is what they talk about in the study linked to by this article. According to the study: Finally, we calculated to what extent LLE from ambient air pollution could be reduced by removing the avoidable anthropogenic emissions in our atmospheric model. We find that the global LLE of 2.9 (2.3–3.5) years (Table 1) could be reduced by 1.7 (1.4–2.0) years through the removal of all potentially preventable anthropogenic emissions and by 1.1 (0.9–1.2) years through the removal of fossil fuel-related emissions alone. So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant.

Gibbon1 6y ago
> So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant. There is also quality of life issues with things like asthma and lung disease. That's harder to quantify than excess deaths and years of life lost but very real. I also had the experience as a kid of living in LA for two years. There was something icky and gross about the air in LA compared to Santa Clara. Which itself wasn't great. So that's also real.
carrolldunham 6y ago
>So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant. Surely it doesn't need to be said that all of the industry facilitated by the fossil fuel use, raises average life expectancy by a lot more. I mean, we will do well to move beyond it, but this article saying it's "staggering" etc. is akin to saying that human activity vs. no activity causes staggering impacts.
ekianjo 6y ago
> So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant. At the same time the opposite point can be made: fossil fuels have disproportionately increased life expectancy worldwide from pre-industrial levels, and made us able to sustain way more human beings on Earth. Talking only about the negative aspects is only half of the discussion.
- GhostVII 6y ago
  I think most people can agree that up until this point, burning fossil fuels have been a net positive. But as renewables get cheaper and more useful, at some point it becomes worth it to pay the cost of renewables rather than continue to have a ~1 year reduced life expectancy. So I think the most important comparison is renewables vs fossil fuels.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > But as renewables get cheaper and more useful, at some point it becomes worth it to pay the cost of renewables rather than continue to have a ~1 year reduced life expectancy Why is nobody talking about nuclear though? The energy density of nuclear blows everything else out of the water, and so far it's been CO2 free for the most part and safer or at the same level of safety as renewables (btw there is no such thing as 'renewable' energy, it's an abuse of language).
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Nuclear is dead because nobody is willing to pay for it. Building safe nuclear reactors is just a money thing. Disposing of waste is all about money. Decommissioning unsafe reactors is also just a matter of money. Before you tell me that regulations are a waste of money think about the two easily preventable nuclear accidents we have already had in the past simply because the people responsible weren't willing to spend money. Here is my advice. Build products (read reactor designs) that people are willing to buy today and you'll find lots of customers.

Gibbon1 6y ago

> So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant. There is also quality of life issues with things like asthma and lung disease. That's harder to quantify than excess deaths and years of life lost but very real. I also had the experience as a kid of living in LA for two years. There was something icky and gross about the air in LA compared to Santa Clara. Which itself wasn't great. So that's also real.

carrolldunham 6y ago

>So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant. Surely it doesn't need to be said that all of the industry facilitated by the fossil fuel use, raises average life expectancy by a lot more. I mean, we will do well to move beyond it, but this article saying it's "staggering" etc. is akin to saying that human activity vs. no activity causes staggering impacts.

ekianjo 6y ago

> So they estimate air pollution from fossil fuels lowers the average life expectancy by 1 year worldwide. Pretty significant. At the same time the opposite point can be made: fossil fuels have disproportionately increased life expectancy worldwide from pre-industrial levels, and made us able to sustain way more human beings on Earth. Talking only about the negative aspects is only half of the discussion.

GhostVII 6y ago
I think most people can agree that up until this point, burning fossil fuels have been a net positive. But as renewables get cheaper and more useful, at some point it becomes worth it to pay the cost of renewables rather than continue to have a ~1 year reduced life expectancy. So I think the most important comparison is renewables vs fossil fuels.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > But as renewables get cheaper and more useful, at some point it becomes worth it to pay the cost of renewables rather than continue to have a ~1 year reduced life expectancy Why is nobody talking about nuclear though? The energy density of nuclear blows everything else out of the water, and so far it's been CO2 free for the most part and safer or at the same level of safety as renewables (btw there is no such thing as 'renewable' energy, it's an abuse of language).
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Nuclear is dead because nobody is willing to pay for it. Building safe nuclear reactors is just a money thing. Disposing of waste is all about money. Decommissioning unsafe reactors is also just a matter of money. Before you tell me that regulations are a waste of money think about the two easily preventable nuclear accidents we have already had in the past simply because the people responsible weren't willing to spend money. Here is my advice. Build products (read reactor designs) that people are willing to buy today and you'll find lots of customers.